Numerous sports require a high degree of hand-eye coordination. In particular, many sports utilize some tool or implement such as a baseball bat, tennis racquet, etc., in order to hit a moving object, often a ball of a particular size and material. Often in these sports, there is an opponent who is propelling the projectile toward the other player. In doing so, the projectile or ball may have a certain amount of spin or curve on it. For example, pitchers are much more effective if they utilize a variety of pitches such as curve balls, sliders, change ups and the like.
Accordingly, a person participating in one of these sports needs to develop not only good hand-eye coordination but excellent reflexes and judgement in adapting to certain quick or unexpected ball movements. Learning to anticipate those movements and respond quickly and accurately may be the difference between overall success or failure.
While many devices have been developed to project a target toward a user to develop reaction time and hand-eye coordination, cost and size are at times prohibitive. Also, these devices do not adequately provide the variation of ball movements necessary to train fully.
The subject invention is a sports training device which has a ball or other target tethered to a handle. The target, tethering arrangement and/or other features can enable the target to move in unique pathways, thus developing both hand-eye coordination and improving reaction time. To avoid twisting of the tether, one or more swivels may be used to account for and reduce the effect of the rotation of the target.
The foregoing and other features and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the following more detailed description of the particular embodiments of the invention, as illustrated in the accompanying drawings.